guest post by Violet Blue

Above is Ely Kim’s truly awesome “Boombox: 100 days, 100 songs, 100 locations, 100 dances” — one of the three videos Jason Schultz (Dir Samuelson Law & Technology Clinic, UC Berkeley) used in his South By SouthWest Interactive 2009 panel New Threats to New Media: Fair Use On Trial. Of the many excellent panels and core conversations at SXSWi ‘09, Shultz’s stood out as one of the most exciting, unforgettable and still talked about sessions at the convention.

That’s not the only thing that left us stirred and excited: We also truly loved a couple of the packed, standing room only core conversations. Like the provocative and informative How Not To Be Evil (Even By Accident) with Danny O’Brien and Eva Galperin (both from the EFF). Also remarkable and highly valuable was the packed Therapy 2.0: Mental Health for Geeks with Dr. Keely Kolmes (professional website) and Thomas Roche. See also: the Therapy 2.0 wiki here. Don’t get me wrong: there was some pure, tiresome, self-congratulatory crap on the schedule; but the value, when found, was extremely high.

But it was the Fair Use on Trial panel that had the dynamic format, high energy, conflict and controversy that made us remember why it’s worth traveling to see this always-evolving conference. For the panel, Schultz picked Stanford’s Julie Ahrens (one of Shepard Fairey’s lawyers); her polar opposite lawyer Ben Sheffner (Fox Media, the McCain presidential campaign); and film artist Kelly Nyks.

Then Schultz set up a really exciting format: first he’d show us an Internet video where fair use was in question. Next, he’d ask the audience for a quick show of hands — was this fair use or not? No nitty gritty definition or dissection, just our initial gut reactions to the video. Fast! Schultz then gave each lawyer three minutes apiece to argue their case (and they were at odds each time). After the arguments, then Schultz would quickly ask the room again — was the video fair use, or not? Then he’d ask if anyone changed their minds. Every time, people did. Jason would then ask one of the people who’d switched to tell us the reason they switched, and only 30 seconds to sum it up for the room. It was the Fair Use Experiment. We watched three videos total, and the Q/A after was on fire.

It was intense, fast-paced and sparked conversations that continued — well, we’re still having them. One of the other videos Schultz showed was “The Films of Stanley Kubrick“. What do you think? Are either of the videos in this post fair use, or not? This slide was our guide.

* More images from the panel are here.

photo by Violet Blue

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.

April Baer of Oregon Public Broadcasting did an pre-event story on this year’s Portland Santacon for NPR’s All Things Considered. You can listen to it here.

See Previously:

- Santacon 2008, Global Santarchy Invasion Planned For December

- You’d Better Watch Out: Portland Santacon ‘96

photo by ohhh_yeah808

Thanks to Santa Yankee Pants for the tip!

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.

Tack Sharp is a great new photography podcast hosted by James Duncan Davidson and Dan Benjamin. Their latest episode “Crop Factor” talks about the differences between crop-frame and full-frame cameras. You can subscribe directly via iTunes.

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.

guest post by Aaron Muszalski

The brainchild of Lorin Edwin Parker and his wife Sarah Seeling, Electric Western is ”Dedicated to the creative use of technology from tubes to germanium & steam to solar.” Saving the world from flat digital sound and pretentious audiophilia.” Thus far, their eclectic inventions – all entirely hand-built – include a steam-powered synthesizer, a fully vintage re-creation of Leon Theremin’s original 1919 Theremin, and such unclassifiable oddities as the ElectroSparklavier, an instrument in which “sound is generated by the ionization of gases within the neon bulbs and thyratron tubes and mixed in various computer triodes.”

In addition to creating Electric Western, Mr. Parker (born, according to his website, in “1877, Idledale Colorado”) is a musician and audio engineer who currently teaches sound design at the Art Institute of California in Los Angeles. He is also a noted Proponent of the Moustachio, and the creator of an interactive drag-and-drop mustache game. Mr. Parker describes the unifying vision behind all these pursuits thusly:

Parker’s aesthetic is an anachronistic confluence of the cultural and technological past, present and future. He draws extensively from Victorian and Edwardian culture and design, blending his historical tilt to re-contextualize modern technology and arts. … 21st century art should be progressive, fun, accessible, even humorous. My art is not meant to be selective or exclusive — it is viable conceptually and as pure entertainment.

Current Electric Western projects include research into the ionic acoustics of plasma, chemo-electric synthesis and ion energy exchanges, further historical instrument reproductions (Ondes Martenot, Trautonium) and a DIY electric car conversion. Excelsior!

photo by Electric Western

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.

guest post by mikl-em

A friend and I at work started talking about weird speakers, so… here’s the results of a couple hours of surfing and gawking.

First let’s start with the affordable, I noticed these on a Korean site, but actually Scott has covered them before:

.

To paraphrase Monty Python: These are the biggest earbuds you’ll ever see! They cost like $50. Let’s move quickly on…

Then there’s iPond. Yes, of course, it’s a “portable aquarium-speaker”. What else?



Best line: “The iPod speaker that comes with built-in tuna“. Somehow Scott hadn’t blogged this before, I am incredibly grateful.

The Ice Cream Sundae speakers will run you $1250 per pair–sweet deal!

From SG Custom Sound who carry a bunch of wild designs. Now let’s go waaay upmarket…

The Nautilus from B&W runs $60K and it’s Cephalopodonous so it gets points for that!

The Muon speakers from KEF were designed by Ross Lovegrove, are made of aluminum, weigh 253 pounds, and are 7′ tall–see Engadget for more details.

They had an incredible launch event for these at the Milan Furniture Fair 2007–check the video. They cost $140K and they only made 100 pairs. For some reason I can’t find any of those pairs for sale on eBay at the moment. :((

And last to mention are the Grand Enigma, a one-of-a-kind set by Kharma, which cost $1,000,000. I won’t even show you a picture cuz they are bigger than they are pretty. And you can’t have them anyway.

Poking around on this theme I found several pages dedicated to cataloging Weird Speakers, enjoy:

• freshome.com recently posted 17 Cool Speakers Designs that Look Better than They Sound
• from CNET Asia
• from HigherFi.com
• Audio Junkies’ 15 sexiest speakers

See Previously: 500 XL, Desktop Speakers in the Shape of Giant iPod Earbuds

photos by (in order) old valve mic, tnarik, My Friend., SG Custom Sound, X Ge and kaitlin_lo

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.

In 1969 Jerry Levitan, a 14 year old Beatles fan at the time, snuck into the hotel where John Lennon was staying in Toronto and talked him into doing an audio interview about peace. 38 years later Jerry’s son Josh Raskin directed the wonderful animated short “I Met The Walrus”, which he created using the the audio from the interview as the soundtrack. The film features pen illustration by James Braithwaite and digital illustration by Alex Kurina.

via Neatorama

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.

“You Look Nice Today” is a hilarious new podcast featuring Twitter giants Adam Lisagor (@lonelysandwich), Scott Simpson (@scottsimpson) and Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies). Bobby Andersen helped encourage the three to start the podcast.

via Merlin Mann

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.

Here’s the brilliant 1959 comedy album “How to Speak Hip” by Del Close and John Brent, converted from vinyl by Skeyelab Music. Like dig it man.

via Ze Frank

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid, subscribe via RSS, Twitter, Facebook & FriendFeed.